Upgrading from Dell Lattitude N5030 to a better computer?

[Greg34523]

I have a Dell Lattitude N5030, I want to upgrade it to something much more powerful. Is the Toshisba satellite S55-B5289 good or is the HP ProBook 450 G1 better? Considering the Tosiba has a i7 but has a Intel(4600 i believe)HD and the Pro book has a i5 but a amd radeon and 4600 Intel Hd. Can anyone help?

 

[jaguarskx]

The N5030 is rather old. So old that if you were to blindly choose a current generation laptop it will be guaranteed to be more power than the Dell.

The HP 450 G1 has a "standard" Intel dual core CPU. The i5-4200m can reach up to 3.1GHz and it comes with the integrated Intel HD 4600 graphics core. It is actually not bad considering that Intel did not really start to focus on integrated graphics performance until 2010. By "standard" I mean the CPU draws more power than a ULV (ultra low voltage) CPU, but because of that it has a higher clock speed.

The Toshiba Satellite S55-B5266 uses Intel's dual core i7-4510u CPU. The "u" means this is a ULV CPU so get better battery compared to the i5-4200m assuming all other hardware in both laptops are the same. The CPU can also reach 3.1GHz, but it;s minimum speed is lower than the i5-4200m. It has an integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics core which is a bit weaker than the Intel HD 4600. The Intel HD 4400 is not too bad as long as you don't have high expectations. I have used it to test some games on my Dell Latitude 3540 which also has a dedicated Radeon HD 8850m graphics chip.

The Radeon R7 M265 is a pretty decent graphics chip. Not as powerful as the Radeon HD 8850m, but definitely more powerful than the Intel HD 4600. Between the two I would select the Toshiba laptop.

 

[Greg34523]

Thank us, I Guess I'll go with the Toshiba then, I wanted to get a stronger laptop but didn't have the budget, but if the Toshiba is a decent bang for my buck, I guess I'll get it, if u have any other ideas don't wait to let me know. Thanks again.

 

[Greg34523]

Oh and 1 more questions, is the toshiba better for gaming?

 

[jaguarskx]

Yes, the Toshiba is better for games because of the dedicated Radeon R7 M265 graphics chip.

 

[Greg34523]

Ok ty

 

[jaguarskx]

I recommend you take a look at the Dell Latitude 3540 because overall it is better than the HP and Toshiba laptops you are looking at. The specs of my laptop are as follows.

- Core i5-4200
- Windows 8.1 Pro
- 4GB of RAM
- 1920x1080 resolution screen
- Radeon HD 8850
- 500GB HDD


You can buy it refurbished from Dell's outlet for under $700. I bought mine refurbished Dell Latitude 3540 from ebay for less than $500 back in January. After doing some research I have found out that Dell was selling the laptop for less than $400 at their outlet site after Thanksgiving in 2013. It comes with a 1 year warranty. The person I bought it from were selling a lot of them so I assume he bought a lot of them for less than $400, then waited until January 2014 to mark them up for small profit on ebay.

Dell's outlet site is currently selling some refurbished Latitude 3540s for $410 (1366x768 resolution, 4GB of RAM, 320GB HDD) to $719 (1920x1080 resolution, 8GB of RAM, 1TB HDD, Radeon HD 8850m). I cannot provide a direct link to the laptops themselves because the site uses cookies to keep track my searches. However, I can provide you with the following link to Dell's Outlet site so that you can do a search for the Latitude 3540. There are different versions listed with slightly different hardware configurations and the site just updated while I was typing this response like different screen resolution and some come with the Radeon HD 8850 (listed as "AMD video card") while others just have the Intel HD 4400 graphics core, or 4GB vs 8GB of RAM... so pay attention.

http/outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/%28S%2800j3j4zc2cgajjbm0vmsjfos%29%29/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=2801&c=us&cs=28&l=en&s=dfb

 

[Greg34523]

Ok thanks for all your help. The only issue is that im trying to stay in the $500-600 range so i may have to look into refurbished but im not sure yet.